May 6, 2014

Mother’s Day is coming up soon! Can’t go wrong with a bouquet of flowers! Paris florist shops are nothing if not glorious. French florists take pride in their unique, artistic, floral creations. Some shops display row-upon-row of seasonal varietals neatly arranged in buckets, while other shops might prefer rustic, country or cottage “looks” to their displays.

Floral gifts: Always an appropriate gift for your mother, your lover, your dinner hostess, your in-laws, or your grandmother on Sunday! Of course, you can buy them for yourself, too. Buy a ready-made bouquet or select your own stems with the florist’s help. You will always be asked whether it’s a gift, so the florist can select the correct wrapping: Pour offrir? C’est un cadeau? If you say “oui,” then the gift packaging (un paquet cadeau) will often include a piece of colored tissue inside the clear plastic wrap, secured with a pretty ribbon tied in a bow, and the florist’s business card (or label) attached to the top.

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Busy months ahead: I am about to embark on a busy couple of months with lots of travel to and fro, so my blog posts will be regular (when I don’t forget), but quite brief—perhaps just the haiku with its photo, the way I started this blog back in October 2013. I may occasionally refer to these as “haiga.”

Haiga: When traditional haiku poets in Japan add a few brush strokes to enhance the effect of a haiku (a frog, a blossom, a bird, branch or mountain, for example), the work is called “haiga.” A number of modern “haikuists,” many living outside of Japan and writing in other languages, now also use photography to heighten the effect of their tiny poems—and call them “haiga,” too.

Here’s my “haiga” post for this week, then, which I hope will remind my photographer and his brother that Sunday is Mother’s Day in the US!